A Good Man in Africa

by William Boyd

  “KNP IS A BRITISH POLITICAL PARTY,” boomed Robinson’s amplified voice.

  “This is disgraceful, intolerable,” Adekunle ranted. “My house is being destroyed. My reputation ruined. I am meant to be giving a victory speech. There will be journalists and TV here in an hour.” His words were almost drowned by the thumping beat of FAN-SHAWE FAN-SHAWE from hundreds of straining throats.

  “It seems to me that it’s only you British they want,” Muller stated coldly. “They’ve no argument with the rest of us here. If you go maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

  “Well!” Mrs. Fanshawe expostulated, her eyes roasting Muller’s thin body.

  “Typical bloody Hun remark,” yipped Fanshawe from her side.

  “Yer,” Jones added patriotically. “Who won the war, boyo, eh? Answer me that if you damn well please.”

  “Daddy, Daddy, what’ll we do?” Priscilla whined. Dalmire hugged her to him reassuringly.

  “FANSHAWE IS A FASCIST IMPERIALIST CRIMINAL,” Robinson trumpeted, setting up a blood-curdling yell of accord from the mob.

  “You have to get out!” Adekunle shouted suddenly. “Get out! Get out of my house. I’m ordering you.” His eyes were wide with panicky alarm.

  “Hold on,” Morgan countered angrily. “We can’t just wander off. They’ll stone us to death.” As if to illustrate this point forcefully more stones clattered against the door.

  “I don’t care!” Adekunle proclaimed. “Muller is right. They only want you. Go to your own houses. Fight your battles on your own ground.”

  As the saying goes, Morgan thought sarcastically. He thought he’d never seen a more pathetic craven bunch. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.” All heads turned to face him. “They want Arthur, right? So let’s give them Arthur.”

  “Leafy!” Fanshawe squawked, swaying back on his heels. “Are you out of your mind? What are you saying, man?”

  “Not you, Arthur,” he said, a surge of confidence flooding through his body, “me. I’ll go in your place as a decoy. I’ll lead the crowd away and then the rest of you can make your escape.” There was a sudden silence in the hall as they considered this idea. Morgan wondered what had made him suggest this course of action. Drink, yes. Guilt too. But above all a desire to get out, do something.

  “But how will they know it’s me and not you?” Fanshawe asked, hope flickering in his eyes.

  “I’ll take the car,” Morgan said. “You lot can take mine; it’s parked back up the road. Head straight for the capital and the High Commission. Dickie and Priscilla can even catch their plane.” He thrust his car keys into Fanshawe’s hand. “And,” he said in a flash of inspiration, “let me change into your suit. Tell the guards to fling open the gates and I’ll drive out hell-for-leather.”

  “It might work,” Muller said.

  “Do it!” Adekunle commanded.

  As quickly as they could Morgan and Fanshawe swapped clothes, the females present modestly turning away. Fanshawe’s jacket and trousers fitted Morgan like a second skin; bracing his shoulders back, forcing his chest out, the sleeves stopping in mid forearm, a two inch gap of leg visible between his turn-ups and socks.

  “It’s a bit small, isn’t it?” Mrs. Fanshawe said, raising her voice to be heard above the relentless swell and crash of her husband’s name being shouted outside.

  “I’m only after the effect,” Morgan panted, hastily knotting the bow tie. “They’ll just see someone in black and white dash into the car.” Adekunle meanwhile gave orders to a servant to inform the guards at the gate of the plan and the man slipped unwillingly out of the front door and sprinted up the drive to pass on the instructions.

  “OK?” Morgan asked, wanting to be off before second thoughts could catch up with him.

  “We need a moustache,” Dalmire suggested and Priscilla rummaged in her handbag for an eyebrow pencil. She drew a thin moustache on Morgan’s upper lip.

  “How do I look?” he asked, and everyone laughed nervously. “Right,” he said. “Let’s go. As soon as the crowd break away, get into my car and head off. They may besiege the Commission tomorrow for all we know.” He stood poised by the door. He felt surprisingly calm. He was glad to be getting out of the house. He was fed up pissing about in this country.

  “Wait,” Mrs. Fanshawe suddenly announced. “I’m coming with you. It’ll be far more convincing if we both go. Arthur’s hardly likely to make a dash for it without me.”

  “No, Mummy,” Priscilla cried.

  “Chloe. I can’t allow it,” Fanshawe piped up.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Fanshawe exclaimed. “When you leave here go to the Commission and we’ll try and meet you there. Don’t wait long. If we’re held up go on down to the capital. There are plenty of people I can stay with until things calm down. I’ll be in no danger.” She would hear of no arguments in opposition. “Don’t you agree, Morgan?” she asked.

  “A brilliant idea,” Adekunle contributed.

  “Well, it’ll certainly be more realistic,” Morgan admitted. “But are you sure …?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” She said goodbye to her family: Fanshawe like some woebegone derelict in an outsize Salvation Army suit; Dalmire and Priscilla proud and young (Priscilla sniffling a bit but probably glad she wouldn’t miss her ski holiday, Morgan thought). Adekunle and Muller stood behind them—Adekunle fierce and outraged, Muller looking quite unconcerned. Beyond them Morgan saw Celia hunched miserably on the stairs.

  Jones slapped him on the back. “Good man, Morgan,” he said. “You give ’em ’ell.”

  With a nod to each other, Morgan and Mrs. Fanshawe paused briefly at the door, then flung it open and dashed down the steps to the car. There was a great shout from the multitudes behind the fence as the objects of their venom appeared and a fresh salvo of stones was launched. Morgan leapt into the driver’s seat and slammed the door, Mrs. Fanshawe doing the same beside him almost simultaneously. Peter, thankfully, had left the key in the ignition and Morgan started the engine. Stones pinged off the bodywork of the car. The crowd surged forward against the fence screaming and shouting.

  “Get down,” Morgan yelled. “Here we go!” He put the car in gear and accelerated up the drive, hunched over the wheel, his hand jammed down on the horn. Taken aback at this sudden blaring charge, the crowd at the gate recoiled in terror, unwilling to be mown down. The guards dragged wide the gates and in seconds the large black car thundered through, people flinging themselves madly out of the way. Morgan swung the car fiercely onto the road, all the windows simultaneously shattering as a barrage of sticks, bottles and stones was hurled at this new target. He glimpsed Femi Robinson extricating himself from a bush, brandishing his megaphone in frustrated rage. Elbowing a hole in the fragmented windscreen, Morgan gunned the motor and sped down the road away from Adekunle’s house. On both sides the massed demonstrators pelted the car as it flashed by. A small stone came in through the right window and glanced off Morgan’s head. Reflexively, he swerved the car and it ploughed off the road, lurching into the shallow ditch. Morgan snatched a look back out of the window and saw the mob streaming after him in hot bellowing pursuit, the leaders a mere twenty or thirty yards away. Frantically he changed down, rammed the accelerator to the floor and the car leapt out of the ditch, its rear wheels spinning furiously, sending up great gouts of dust and gravel. Without thinking of where he was going Morgan took the first turning that presented itself, drove until another road branched off, turned down it, took a left, a right, another right. Very soon all sounds of pursuit died away. He motored steadily along the narrow tree-lined campus roads, the panic seeping from his body, bungalows lying sedately on either side, the wind whistling through the shattered windows, cool on his face.

  “I think we made it,” he said huskily to Mrs. Fanshawe.

  “Yes,” she said in a quiet voice, sitting upright again. “Do you … do you think the others will have got away?”

  “I should think so, we caused enough of a distraction. And an
yway, I think it was clear that their argument was with us … that is, with Arthur.”

  “Poor Arthur,” Mrs. Fanshawe said, putting her hand up to her mouth. “He’ll be so terribly upset about all this.”

  Morgan made no reply to that. He peered ahead of him. He had no idea where he was. The residential areas of the campus were a maze of these quiet dark roads. He looked quickly at Mrs. Fanshawe. She had hardly spoken, hadn’t screamed or made any kind of a fuss, just sat clinging to her seat. He was impressed. They came to a crossroads and he stopped the car.

  “Any clue which way?” he asked, turning to face her.

  “Oh Lord, you’ve got blood on your face,” she said. Morgan touched his forehead above his right eye. His fingertips came away dark and wet.

  “I was hit by a stone,” he said. “Probably looks worse than it is. Just a scratch,” he added bravely.

  “I think if you turn left here it should take us to the main gate.”

  Morgan did as she advised. He noticed the roads were strangely empty. They had seen no other cars and many of the staff houses showed no lights. Everyone battening down the hatches with a campus revolution on their hands, he thought. He heard a heavy rumble of thunder. The promised rain was approaching.

  “Thunder,” he commented, just wanting to say something. “That should damp their spirits a bit.”

  They drove round a sharp bend. As they did so the headlights picked out the lone figure of a man standing at the corner of a road junction. Morgan drove past and then slammed his foot on the brakes.

  “Why have you stopped?” Mrs. Fanshawe asked, surprised.

  “That was Murray.”

  “Who?”

  “Murray. Dr. Murray. That man standing by the road there.”

  “So what?”

  “I … I’ve got something to tell him. Won’t be a sec.” Morgan got out of the car and jogged back up the road.

  “Dr. Murray,” he called. “Alex. It’s me, Morgan Leafy.” Murray was standing at the roadside in his usual outfit of grey flannels, white short-sleeved shirt and tie. He looked closely at Morgan in the dark.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked in tones of real astonishment. Morgan realised suddenly what kind of outlandish figure he must cut in his shrunken formal clothes, his scrawled moustache, elastoplast eyebrow and bloodied forehead. He told Murray about the riot outside Adekunle’s house.

  “Mrs. Fanshawe and I made our escape,” he concluded. “Drew the mob away, I think.”

  “Quite the hero,” Murray said drily. “I wouldn’t carry on much further up this road though if I were you,” he went on. “There’s a pitched battle going on between the riot police and the students occupying the administrative offices. You’ll run right into the middle of it. Listen.” Morgan heard above the shrill of the crickets in the grass and hedges a distant shouting and a kind of firework-popping effect.

  “I’m told the riot police are blazing away at anything that moves and there’s tear gas everywhere.”

  “Oh Christ,” Morgan said. “What do we do now?”

  “There’s only one other road out of the campus but it’s miles back in the other direction. I doubt you’ll be able to find it.”

  “What are you doing out anyway?” Morgan inquired. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I don’t mind,” Murray said. “I’m waiting for my ambulance to come and pick me up. Apparently my clinic’s full of injured students. Broken heads and broken bones. And some gunshot wounds.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you want to stay at my house you’re very welcome. It’s just up the road there.”

  “Thanks,” Morgan said. “But we’ve got to try and reunite Mrs. Fanshawe with her family and get them down to the High Commission. I think we’ll try and skirt round the riot, sneak out of the main gate.”

  “Well, be careful,” Murray warned. “Those riot squad boys are not the most amenable characters.”

  “We will,” Morgan said. There was a pause. “Look,” he said a little awkwardly, “the reason I stopped was that I wanted to tell you that I’ve decided to resign my job tomorrow. I’ll be leaving soon—so you don’t need to worry about me when you make your report. Just as well,” he shrugged. “You were right. It’s better to face up to it.” He tried to grin in the darkness but it didn’t really come off. “I feel it’s the right thing, you know. This place and me … well, never really got on. I think in a way I’ll actually be quite glad to be shot of it all. So,” he spread his arms, “give Adekunle the works. There’s nothing he can do … you know, that’s going to foul things up for me. I’ve, ah, beaten him to it. Ha ha.” The hollow laugh died away.

  “I shall,” Murray said. “Don’t worry.”

  There was a silence. It seemed to form like a wall between them. There was so much that he suddenly wanted to say to Murray: vaguely articulated ideas, half thought-out notions, old apologies, explanations.

  “One more thing,” Morgan said. “I almost forgot. I found out tonight that Adekunle’s got some chum in the Senate who plans to ‘lose’ your committee’s minutes. I’d take a few copies if I were you.”

  “I will,” Murray said. “Many thanks. They’ll never buy that land from him, don’t worry.”

  “Great,” Morgan said, patting his pockets like a man searching for matches. “Good,” he nodded. “Sure we can’t give you a lift somewhere?”

  “No thanks. The ambulance will be here any minute.”

  “Right.” He looked round. “Well,” he breathed out loudly. How could he say what he felt to Murray? “I just wanted to see you … tell you about things.” He let his eyes rest on Murray’s face but it was too dark for him to distinguish his features clearly. He held out his hand and Murray shook it briefly. He held the dry cool hand for a second. “Well, I’ll, ah, see you, Alex. Maybe next week? Perhaps I could look by … before I go. I just wanted to put you in the picture now.”

  “Fine,” Murray said. “Thanks, Morgan. It was good of you.”

  Morgan gave a half wave, muttered something indistinct and walked away. Thunder mumbled in the sky overhead. In the car he looked back and saw Murray standing there, saw the faint gleam of his white shirt.

  Chapter 10

  “What shall we do?” Mrs. Fanshawe asked, looking at the line of riot police that effectively cut them off from the main gate and safety. Morgan could think of no reply at the moment so he kept his mouth shut. They were hiding behind a dense bush some fifty yards away from the administration block which looked as if it had been the target for an air strike. Three cars blazed furiously in front of it, casting a flickering orange glow over the white walls of the arts theatre, the bookshop and the senate offices. Every visible window had been smashed, makeshift barricades of office furniture blocked walkways and entrances and thousands of sheets of paper blew across the piazza and around the foot of the clock tower. Ahead of them stretched the dual carriageway that led to the main gate and across which now stood a three-deep line of fully equipped riot police who were slowly advancing towards the occupied administrative offices. From the darkness came screams, shouts and catcalls from marauding students who occasionally crept close enough to the regrouping riot police to pelt them with stones and any other missiles that came to hand. The air tingled with dispersing tear gas, making their eyes water and their skin itchy. From time to time an edgy policeman loosed off a warning round into the air.

  Morgan thought the atmosphere reminded him of the fateful lull before a battle. Like melodramatic stage effects the thunder grumbled distantly and lightning flickered along the western horizon. It looked as though the centre of the storm was passing Nkongsamba by, but a few fat drops of rain had fallen to add to their discomfort.

  After leaving Murray they had driven on up the road going slower and slower as the noise of the tumult ahead increased. They thought about retracing their steps and looking for the back gate, but their ignorance of the route and the prospect of bumping into frustrated rioters made
them decide eventually to abandon the battered car and try to skirt round the trouble, leaving the roads and cutting through several gardens to reach their present position behind the bush. Morgan looked at Mrs. Fanshawe. Her pink dress was torn at the hem and looked grubby; the pearls round her neck individually trapped the flames of the burning cars. She showed no signs of flagging yet.

  Morgan, however, felt exhausted, the tensions of the drive knotting and cramping every muscle in his body. He felt morose and uncaring too, troubled by his strange meeting with Murray.…

  “Morgan,” Mrs. Fanshawe hissed. “If those men keep walking in this direction they’re going to stumble right over us.”

  “Oh God. Christ yes, you’re right. What do you want to do, Chloe? Shall we go back to the car? Perhaps we could hide in one of the houses?”

  “Let’s just get out of this lunatic asylum,” she said. “If we cut back into the gardens again,” she pointed to the gardens of the houses that lined the dual carriageway, “surely we can work our way round to the main gate.”

  “Yes,” he said, complimenting her on her presence of mind. “Good idea.” He felt a sudden compulsion to lie down and go to sleep. He watched the advancing riot police fire half a dozen canisters of tear gas at the besieged administrative offices. Two of them exploded prettily on the piazza, sending thick orange-tinted clouds of gas spreading among the trampled flower-beds and ornamental fish-ponds.

  “Morgan!” Mrs. Fanshawe rebuked him. “Let’s go, for heaven’s sake!” He looked up and saw the line of police about thirty yards in front of him, some with round shields, gas masks and long truncheons, some with rifles carried at port arms. An icy douche of raw terror sluicing through his veins, he seized Mrs. Fanshawe’s hand and, keeping in a low crouch, they scurried from the shelter of their bush and dashed across a patch of open ground making for the high hedge of the nearest garden.

  An immediate shout went up from the police, and from the corner of his eye he caught the muzzle flash of rifles as they were fired. He didn’t hear the sound of the shots, just a curious slapping noise in the air around his head which he half-registered as the effect of bullets passing close by. He gave a heaving sob, straightened up and dragged Mrs. Fanshawe on behind him. He heard the pounding of heavy boots as some of the riot squad decided to give chase.